Numerous brands of floor polish, also commonly referred to as floor waxes, are available commercially. The ingredients and the relative proportions of ingredients vary widely among the brands, but most include acrylic copolymers which are chemically crosslinked, typically with zinc. Most floor polishes also contain natural and/or synthetic waxes, natural and/or synthetic resins and other performance ingredients such as but not limited to coalescing agents, plasticizers, surface active agents, and defoamers. Although commercial floor polishes are generally sold as liquids, dry compositions are also known. In use, floor polishes are applied to floor surfaces which may be vinyl, and vinyl composition tile, linoleum, ceramic tile, sealed wood, or one of the many other hard or resilient flooring materials currently available. When dry, the layer of floor polish is often buffed to yield a desirable shine to the flooring. The shiny acrylic or wax layer provides a barrier to protect the flooring material from spills and the like and resists scuffing.
However, after repeated contact with dirt and other soils such as that deposited by pedestrian traffic, and as a result of repeated cleaning with hard surface cleaners, an originally shiny layer of polish loses its gloss and clarity, becoming dull, scratched, sometimes yellowed and soiled with ground-in dirt. Hence, after extended periods it becomes necessary to remove the aged layer of polish so that it can be replaced with a new layer. The removal of floor polish from floor surfaces has in the past generally been achieved through the use of strong solvents such as glycol ethers contained in fully-built floor polish removers. These conventional floor polish removers also typically contain ammonia. It was previously believed that these strong solvents and ammonia, or very high pH, were necessary to substantially remove the aged layer of polish due to its inherent ability to resist degradation. In particular, floor polishes which include acrylic polymers having zinc crosslinkages are formulated to resist detergents and are thus extremely difficult to remove. Polish removers containing solvents and ammonia disrupt the zinc crosslinkage such that the ammonia forms coordination compounds with the zinc and the solvents soften the polymers. Other ingredients then remove the disrupted acrylic polymers.
For a number of reasons, consumer preference for floor polish removers has turned away from the use of strong solvents and ammonia. In particular, the strong ammoniacal odor associated with ammonia-containing compositions are undesirable. However, performance, convenience of use, and economy are still significant concerns to the consumer.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a floor polish remover which conveniently and effectively removes a layer of floor polish and which does not contain ammonia or strong solvents such as glycol ethers both of which have undesirable strong odors. It would also be desirable to provide such a floor polish remover which is particularly effective in removing floor polishes containing acrylic polymers. It would further be desirable to provide a convenient, economical method of manufacturing such a floor polish and the simple method of using such a polish. The present invention achieves these goals.